


Eramis the Puppet

by UnkindledAsh



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Dialogue-Only, Ficlet, Gen, Lore-style, Mind Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29626332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnkindledAsh/pseuds/UnkindledAsh
Summary: Eramis had steadily risen in her life to become Kell of her own House. Now she is a footnote in someone else's story and she is left with nothing but time to ponder how she got here. And the source of all her suffering is now her only company.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Eramis the Puppet

I am Eramis, the Shipstealer.

Eramis, who stole from That Which Cannot be Stolen From.

Eramis, Kell of House ||Salvation||.

I crossed the great blackness of space to find the Great Machine. Where others sought it like lost children seeking a parent who no longer loves them, I was different. I would use every power, every means at my disposal to drag it down from its lofty position and ask it one question: Why? Why did it leave us to the chittering, snarling brood of the butcher Oryx. Why did it not aid us. Why did Athrys and my children die afraid? And when we arrived here, a new question formed: why had it done so for the people of this system?

But now I am frozen here, at the moment of my defeat. Abandoned by yet another god. The atoms of my body no longer move. Then how do I continue to think? Mysteries which cannot be probed are simply torments, as is being forced to look at IT. The architect of our destruction, whose powers now surely corrupt and addict those who could not flee. Our dependence on Ether merely exchanged for something far worse. ||But I always knew how this would end. I was never truly of interest.||

That voice again. It sounds like me, but I did not think those thoughts. Even now it taunts me. The Machine-spawn who defeated me and scattered my house… was I truly just bait? A lure to draw the little vermin to a flame it could no more control than me? ||I was tested and found wanting.||

I did not want this test. I wanted Riis again ||despite death being the barrier I will never cross. Instead I will drift. Down. Deeper.||

No. I must remember. I sacrificed for Athrys and my children, for their memory. And yet, I cannot remember the children's names. I cannot remember Athrys's face, the feeling of all her arms around me, what it was like to breathe the sweet air of Riis with her. ||All ash in the Whirlwind, tested and found wanting.||

No, stop. Let me have their memories untarnished.

||Why?||

Because everything I did…

||You did for yourself. For your own gratification. To grow strong and wield that power. To force the universe to recognize Eramis. And it did.||

But…

||Then why did you unleash the Vex? Countless Eliksni now lay dead because you could not accept defeat. You were so close to transcendence, and so far.||

That was not me. I did not do that.

||But you did. You remember the sickening feeling of Variks wounding your conscience, buried so deep yet still there. That wound, that insult turned to rage in you and you have undone your work. All of it.||

No. That was not me. I am not that. I cannot accept you. You were a means to an end.

||I was the means to your end. I am Salvation, and you were saved from weakness and plucked from obscurity. You used your power to seek yet more because this is the way of all life. As my favored children say, aiat. You, too, could have become something infinitely more substantial without your sentiments and tethers. But now here you are, defeated. So drift. Embrace this rest. I will take care of everything else. The rest of your kind shall join soon. For you were always thin, insubstantial, destined to whet a sharper blade.||

No. Stop. I am not you. I am not yours.

I am Eramis, the Shipstealer...


End file.
